I built 101+ free calculators with Astro – here's what I learned

Aashish Sah — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 20:07:42 +0000

So I've been working on this side project for a few months now —
ourdailycalc.com — and I finally feel like it's at a point where
I can talk about it.

It's a calculator website. Yeah I know, another one. But hear me out.

Most calculator sites I've used are either covered in ads, painfully
slow, or give you a result with zero explanation of how they got there.
I wanted something cleaner.

I built it with Astro and honestly it was a great choice for this kind
of project. Static generation means pages load almost instantly and
there's zero client-side JS by default. Tailwind for styling,
Cloudflare for deployment.

The ⌘K search was something I really wanted — you can type
"20% of 500" or "convert 5 feet to cm" directly and it just works.
Feels nicer than hunting through menus.

Every formula has its source documented too. Like BMI uses the WHO
standard, calorie calculation uses Mifflin-St Jeor. I got tired of
calculator sites that just give you a number and you have to trust it.

The hard part honestly was scaling from like 10 calculators to 100+.
Keeping the design consistent, the SEO structured, the codebase not
a disaster — that took more thought than the calculators themselves.

It also works offline as a PWA which was fun to implement.

Still a lot to improve. Mobile UX could be better on some tools.
Planning to push toward 200 calculators eventually.

If you want to check it out: ourdailycalc.com

Would genuinely love feedback — broken formulas, missing calculators,
anything. Drop it in the comments.

I Built 77 Free Online Calculators Because I Got Tired of Searching for Them

Aashish Sah — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 13:39:53 +0000

I needed a simple calculator.

Not a complex financial model. Not a fancy AI tool.

Just a calculator.

So I searched Google.

Then I opened one website.

Then another.

One had too many ads. One was slow. One looked like it hadn't been updated since 2010. Another asked me to sign up for something that should have taken 10 seconds.

And that's when I had a thought:

Why am I spending more time finding a calculator than actually using it?

That simple frustration became the starting point of a project that has now grown into OurDailyCalc, a platform with more than 77 free online calculators.

The Funny Part

At first, I only wanted to build one calculator.

Just one.

I thought it would be a nice small project.

A few hours later, I thought:

"Well, if I'm making one, I might as well make a percentage calculator too."

Then:

"Maybe students would find a GPA calculator useful."

Then:

"What about an EMI calculator?"

Then:

"What about SIP calculations?"

Then BMI.

Then GST.

Then study planners.

Then scientific calculators.

Then conversion tools.

Before I knew it, the project had completely escaped my control.

What started as one calculator became dozens.

And somehow, I ended up building 77 of them.

The Real Problem Wasn't Coding

The coding part was actually the easy part.

The harder challenge was asking:

How do you make something people genuinely want to use?

Most people don't visit calculator websites because they're excited.

They visit because they have a problem.

They want an answer.

Fast.

Nobody wakes up and thinks:

"Today I can't wait to spend 30 minutes on a calculator website."

People want to:

Calculate an EMI
Check their GPA
Figure out a percentage
Estimate investment returns
Calculate their age

And then move on with their day.

That realization changed how I thought about the project.

Every page needed to be:

Fast
Simple
Mobile-friendly
Easy to understand
Free

No unnecessary steps.

No complicated interfaces.

No distractions.

What I Learned Building 77 Calculators

One thing that surprised me was how many tiny details matter.

Something as simple as changing a button label can improve usability.

Adding examples can reduce confusion.

Making a page load a little faster can improve the entire experience.

When you're building utility tools, users don't care how clever your code is.

They care whether the tool solves their problem immediately.

That's a humbling lesson for any developer.

The Challenge Nobody Talks About

Once the calculators were built, a new challenge appeared.

Getting people to find them.

Building something is one thing.

Getting discovered is something completely different.

I started learning about:

SEO
Sitemaps
Indexing
Internal linking
Content strategy
Search intent

And honestly, it feels like learning an entirely new skill.

I now understand why so many great products never get noticed.

Building is only half the journey.

Distribution matters just as much.

Why I'm Sharing This

I'm still a student.

I'm still learning.

And this project is far from finished.

But I wanted to share this story because so many side projects start with a huge idea.

Mine started with a tiny annoyance.

I got tired of searching for calculators.

That's it.

No grand vision.

No market research.

Just a small problem that kept bothering me.

Sometimes that's enough.

What's Next?

The goal is simple:

Make OurDailyCalc the place people visit when they need a calculation.

I'm continuing to:

Add more calculators
Improve existing ones
Write helpful guides
Learn SEO
Learn product development
Build in public

And most importantly, keep listening to users.

Final Thoughts

One thing I've learned from this journey is that useful products don't have to be complicated.

You don't always need to build the next social network.

You don't need a revolutionary AI breakthrough.

Sometimes solving a simple problem really well is enough.

So if you're sitting on an idea you've been thinking about for weeks, this is your sign to start building it.

You might be surprised where it leads.

🚀 Website: https://ourdailycalc.com

If you have feedback, ideas for new calculators, or you're building something yourself, I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

DEV Community: Aashish Sah

I built 101+ free calculators with Astro – here's what I learned

I Built 77 Free Online Calculators Because I Got Tired of Searching for Them

The Funny Part

The Real Problem Wasn't Coding

What I Learned Building 77 Calculators

The Challenge Nobody Talks About

Why I'm Sharing This

What's Next?

Final Thoughts